Disney In Talks To Acquire The Owner Of Crypto Exchanges Bitstamp And Korbit (#GotBitcoin?)

The Walt Disney Co. is in talks to acquire South Korea’s NXC Corp., the majority owner of bitcoin exchanges Bitstamp and Korbit. Disney In Talks To Acquire The Owner Of Crypto Exchanges Bitstamp And Korbit (#GotBitcoin?)

As reported by Dailyhold, Disney’s interest is highly unlikely in cryptocurrency but instead in Nexon, 47% owned by NXC and South Korea’s largest game developer and second-largest online games publisher globally. Nexon offers more than 80 mobile gaming titles, including a number of titles licensed from Electronic Arts Inc.

NXC Chairman Jung-ju Kim is selling the 98.6% stake that he and his wife hold in the company. A report by The Korea Herald April 17claimed that the sale price for NXC comes in at 15 trillion won ($13.2 billion). Although there are multiple companies interested in buying the shares, including Tencent, Kakao, Bain Capital, MBK Partners and KKR, Disney is claimed to be the front runner.

NXC’s ownership of Bitstamp comes via its Belgian investment arm NXMH, which acquired the cryptocurrency exchange for as much as $400 million inOctober. Bitstamp is notable as being the longest running bitcoin exchange, established in 2011. The company’s stake in Korbit comes via a 65% stake owned directly via Nexon.

Although it’s unlikely that Disney would be interested in Bitstamp and Korbit, it’s not the beyond the realm of possibility that it may retain both should the acquisition proceed. Disney first took an interest in cryptocurrencies and blockchain a few years back, creating and backing an open-source platform called Dragonchain that offered an initial coin offering in 2017. Dragonchain and its DRGN token are still around today, but suffice it to say it wasn’t a huge success.

Should Disney acquire NXC, it will be a small deal compared with its acquisition of 21st Century Fox Inc. for $71.3 billion in March.